I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to direct injection internal combustion engines and, more particularly, to a system for attaching the fuel injectors to the fuel rail.
II. Description of Material Art
Direct injection internal combustion engines are enjoying increased popularity due to their fuel efficiency and low emissions. In such direct injection engines, the fuel injector has one end open directly to the internal combustion chamber so that fuel from the fuel injector injects directly into the internal combustion chamber rather than upstream from the intake valves as in the previously known multipoint fuel injector engines.
In order to ensure the proper introduction of fuel into the engine combustion chamber, the fuel is provided to the fuel injector under very high pressures. Furthermore, it is necessary to lock the fuel injector to the fuel rail against movement despite these high fuel pressures.
In one type of previously known mount for the fuel injector, a fuel cup was attached at one end to the fuel rail and open at its other end. The fuel injector was inserted into the open end of the fuel cup and then secured to the fuel cup against axial movement by a two piece clip arrangement. This two piece clip arrangement, however, suffered several disadvantages.
One disadvantage of the previously known two clip means for attaching the fuel injector to the cup is that the actual attachment of the two piece clip for each injector was time consuming and somewhat difficult to achieve. This, in turn, increased the labor cost for assembling the fuel injectors to the fuel rail.
A still further disadvantage of this previously known two clip arrangement for securing the fuel injector to the fuel cup was that the actual two piece clip assembly was relatively expensive to manufacture. This, in turn, increased the overall cost of the fuel rail assembly with the attached fuel injectors.